1969 Silvertone 1482

The Silvertone 1482 is a vintage department store amp made by the Sears company and these things sound just as cool as they look. Silvertone (and Airline which was made by Montgomery Wards) were designed from the ground up. They did not, in any way, copy the circuits from major brand name amp makers like Fender, Marshall, or Vox, the mainstay of schematic design at the time. Many other lower priced tube amp companies of this era would have done exactly that, and often did. But Sears invested in hiring great engineers who went their own way, and this resulted in amps that sound like no other brand - which has only recently been acknowledged and revered. These were considered “student” amps at the time. Although the circuit engineering and sound are very good, Sears cut major corners on construction quality in order to make amplifiers that literally anyone could afford. The use of cheap particle board cabinets, instead of the normal sturdy choices of pine or baltic birch plywood, is the biggest offender - which means many of these amps can have issues with the “wood”. Speaker choices were often Jensen’s or a knockoff of Jensen. The Airline brand which I previously mentioned was the direct competitor to Silvertone, but Airline did not come up with their own original circuits. Instead, they shamelessly copied the Sears audio engineering and design but packaged them in slightly different looking cabinets with unique model names and layouts. Functionally, both brands are the same. Airline released most of the Silvertone lineup in their own aesthetic. Inside, the amps are wired true point-to-point with the use of terminal strips. This amp is often called the “poor man’s Deluxe” due to the similar tube lineup and speaker/cab dimensions of the Fender 5E3 Deluxe. Silvertone and Airline amps have had a resurgence lately due to their well known usage by Jack White of The White Stripes, and Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys.

This amp came in to my shop in mostly original condition. This one needed a full restoration including an electrolytic cap job, new power/plate resistors, coupling cap replacement, a new preamp tube, a new speaker, and cleaning. The customer wants to use this amp in an active recording studio so putting a modern high quality Weber brand speaker in it will help with reliability.

The amp was fully restored. A complete cap job was done including the electrolytic cap can, which was replaced with a custom circuit using axial leaded electrolytics and phenolic terminal strips for the filter section. The caps used were CE brand units with upgraded temperature ratings. This was done because the original multi-section cap had an unusual 1" diameter and there have been no replacements available for decades. If it had been the usual 1 3/8" diameter type can we could have gotten any number of new reproductions. The bypass capacitors were replaced with CE/Mod brand electrolytics with upgraded voltage/temperature ratings. The lone paper/foil signal cap was replaced with Vishay brand polyester film capacitor. There was a non-functioning and burnt Ceramic Disc Capacitor that was replaced with a Mallory 150 film cap. The old 1/2 Watt Carbon Comp power resistors and plate resistors were replaced with upgraded Reduced Mass 2 Watt Metal Film type units. This was done due to heat damage, noise, and drift of the original parts. The higher wattage resistors mean better reliability and a lower noise floor. The death cap was removed for safety. A brand new correctly sized 3AG 250V fuse was installed as the one in place was the wrong value.

The customer wanted the speaker changed to a model that was in line with what would have been in the amp originally but that was made with better parts and had a beefier wattage rating. A new Weber 12A125A 30 Watt 12” Alnico Speaker (Light Dope @ 8 Ohm) was installed to replace the original unit. This is Weber's take on the early 1960's Jensen P12Q - an extremely close and high quality reproduction. The wiring for the speaker was updated with Quick-Disconnect Spade Lugs.

All of the original tubes tested good and were kept in place with the exception of the V2 12AX7. The final lineup was: V1 = Sovtek 12AX7WA, V2 = JJ 12AX7MG, V3/V4 = EHX 6V6GT Matched Pair, V5 = RCA 6AU6A, V6 = GE 6X4,. The 6V6GT's Cathode Bias was set to a semi-cool 90% Class AB Plate Dissipation with a B+ of 337VDC. With amps that have bias-modulated Tremolo like this one, the hotter you set the bias the weaker the effect will become - the phenomena plagues many old amps that were setup incorrectly over the years by techs that don’t understand this balancing act. The tube sockets were all cleaned with a De-Oxit treatment to prevent noise from corrosion. The pots were sprayed out and the amp was cleaned inside and out.